April 2012

04/29/2012

On March 7, 2012, the Republican incumbent District 56 Representative Charles "Doc" Anderson and the challenger, Chistopher DeCluitt, participated in a debate in Waco at University High School. They discussed several questions that deal with immigration:

(1) In-state tuition for undocumented students (4:15-7:41). If the law were up for a vote again, Chris DeCluitt would vote against the in-state tuition law as it is now because he has concerns about the ability to verify 3 year residence for students to qualify. Mr. Anderson supports the law as it is (I think).

(2) Border Security (34:56-38:30). This was a broad question that included what should be done with the undocumented that are on this side of the border. Neither candidate addressed the undocumented question but both focused on Border Security. Mr. Anderson emphasized the increased funding and resources that Texas has spent on border security under Governor Perry. Mr. DeCluitt is of the opinion that Texas should let the federal government secure the border and that the resources should be redirected to fight the drug crime that occurs on the Texas-Mexico border.

Here's an opposing view to the New York Times article regarding ICE's Friday announcement about Secure Communities:

Today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it would not adopt major recommendations made by the task force established by the agency last year. According to DHS Counselor to Secretary Napolitano, John Sandweg, the agency will continue to pursue low-level offenders, including immigrants convicted of minor traffic offenses. However, for individuals arrested solely for minor traffic offenses, who have not previously been convicted of other crimes and do not fall within any of ICE’s enforcement priorities, ICE will only consider commencing enforcement action upon conviction for the minor traffic offense. Today’s announcement, comes as a disappointment to immigration advocates who, along with state and local officials across the country, including Governor Andrew Cuomo and members of Congress; local law enforcement agencies and victims’ rights groups, have for two years voiced their opposition to the program.

This announcement came in response to a September 2011 report on S-Comm from the DHS task force; the report was harshly critical of the program, finding that S-Comm had an adverse impact on community policing because it discourages immigrant witnesses and crime victims from reporting crime and cooperating with police. Arturo Venegas, the former police chief of Sacramento, said the program was “deeply flawed” and was “undermining public safety.” Some of the task force’s recommendations include suspension pending major reforms, or outright termination of the program, better training for ICE personnel, and calls for ICE to provide legal authority for its claim that states’ participation in the program is mandatory.

“By disregarding the major recommendations by its own task force, DHS has failed to address our concerns associated with this misguided program,” said Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition. “We remain deeply troubled by the Administration’s rapid roll-out of a program that has been at the center of so much controversy.”

04/28/2012

Fewer [undocumented] immigrants stopped by police for minor traffic violations would be held for deportation under changes announced Friday to a federal fingerprinting program, Department of Homeland Security officials said.

The policy change on how federal agents will handle [undocumented] immigrants arrested by state and local police for offenses like driving without a license came in the department’s response to a report by a task force on the federal program.

One of the task force’s central recommendations was that the program, called Secure Communities, should avoid deportations of traffic violators.

The sharply critical task force report, issued last September, argued that such deportations were inconsistent with the department’s stated priorities of removing foreigners with serious criminal records. The increase in deportations of minor offenders under Secure Communities, the task force concluded, was undermining vital ties of trust between local police and immigrant neighborhoods.

* * *

Under the program, fingerprints of anyone booked by the police are checked against F.B.I. criminal databases — long a routine procedure — and also against databases of the Department of Homeland Security, which include immigration violations. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, has been rapidly extending the program with the goal of reaching all 3,181 jurisdictions in the country by next year.

Homeland Security officials contended that the new policy on traffic violators could bring a major change in the program’s impact.

As the program spread, more local arrests resulted in immigration holds, and illegal immigrants who did not have criminal convictions found themselves facing deportation because of tickets for speeding, burned-out tail lights or driving without a license.

In all but a handful of states, immigrants here illegally cannot obtain driver’s licenses.

Under the refinement, when illegal immigrants are arrested solely for traffic offenses and do not have a prior criminal record, federal agents will only consider placing a hold — known as a detainer — after they are convicted.

“ICE agrees that enforcement action based solely on a charge for a minor traffic offense is generally not an efficient use of government resources,” the department response says.

Immigrants arrested for drunken driving would not benefit from the new policy, officials said.

In practice, most traffic violators are released well before they are convicted, and now immigrants stopped by traffic police will not remain in custody to be picked up by federal agents.

Detainers are only in effect as long as the immigrant is in local police custody, homeland security officials said.

Jose Guillermo Magana-Salgado, an undocumented student from Phoenix, Arizona, graduated from the Baylor University School of Law today.

Jose was Executive and Associate Editor of the Baylor Law Review and received the Dean's Scholarship. Jose graduated from Arizona State University cum laude in 2008 in spite of losing his merit-based full scholarship after Arizona changed its law so that undocumented students were not eligible for state scholarships.

Jose is an advocate for the DREAM Act and was a Lead Organizer of the Waco DREAM Act Alliance, the Texas DREAM Act Alliance and the Arizona DREAM Act Coalition.

Congratulations Jose. Good luck as you continue your journey. I know you will do great things!

04/23/2012

Frustrating statistics. While it is true that the memo is being followed for people not yet in proceedings, if a person is already in deportation proceedings, the chances of getting relief through prosecutorial discretion are so far pretty bleak.

04/22/2012

The Republican candidates seeking to replace Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison in the U.S. Senate are remarkably similar on the issue of immigration. They all oppose any path to legalization for undocumented immigrants currently in the U.S. and the DREAM Act.

David Dewhurst -- Lieutenant Governor of Texas opposes a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants, supported the Texas "sanctuary cities" law that passed the Senate but not the House in the last legislative session, and opposes in-state tuition for undocumented students who graduated from Texas high schools and fulfill Texas residency requirements (the Texas DREAM Act that is the current law).

Tom Leppert - former Dallas mayor states that he does not support any form of amnesty. I did not find any position he has taken on the DREAM Act, but must assume that he would consider this as an amnesty program.

04/21/2012

Daniel Perez is a 19 year-old senior at Coolidge High School who came to this country when he was five years old. His hobbies include football and architecture. Daniel wants to stay in the United States in order to continue attending school, and one day start his own business. Daniel has applied to Navarro Community College and Texas State Technical College and hopes to attend college in the fall

Luis Ortiz is a 19 year-old senior at Waco High School who came to this country when he was 4 years old. His hobbies include playing scocer and working on cars. He's applied to Texas State Technical College and wants to get a degree in Automotive Technology. Luis is scared of being deported back to Mexico, a country he has not lived in for fifteen years. He states, "I feel afraid. I have nothing in Mexico."

04/20/2012

A local grass-roots group is rallying to protest the pending deportations of two Central Texas high school students who organizers say qualify for an exemption to remain in the United States.

Luis Ortiz, 19, a senior at Waco High School, and Daniel Perez, 19, a senior at Coolidge Junior/Senior High School in Limestone County, are undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. by their parents when they were children.

Both are facing deportation to Mexico, even though their status as high school students and lack of a serious criminal background would allow them to remain in the U.S. under Immigration and Customs Enforcement guidelines.

Perez and a group of friends were arrested in July 2010 for a fight with another friend. Perez was a bystander during the incident and was not charged.

Ortiz was arrested in November 2010 for drag racing along Interstate 35 and pleaded guilty to a Class B misdemeanor.

Both cases were the teens' first arrests, but the incidents put them on ICE's radar for deportation, their attorney said.

A San Antonio immigration judge Thursday set a Dec. 10, 2012 hearing for Perez to make his case for having the deportation proceedings dismissed. Ortiz has a hearing set Jun 27.

The Waco DREAM Act Alliance, which supports creating a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, is holding a screening today of the documentary "Papers: Stories of Undocumented Youth," to raise awareness for the two teens' cases.

Ortiz, Perez and their families will attend the screening and publicly come forward about their struggle.

The group also will gather signatures for a petition to the Department of Homeland Security, which includes the immigration agency, asking that the students' deportation be deferred. An online outreach effort also is being planned.

"We're hoping to creat more of a human connection between the local community, and eventually the national community, and these students ... and have people understand that they're in very difficult situation that, under the administration's guidelines, they should not be under, said Jose Magana, Baylor law student and president of the alliance.

Susan Nelson, a Waco immigration attorney representing both students, said an order issued last year by ICE director John Morton grants immigration prosecutors discretion to dismiss or defer deportation proceedings against undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. when they were children, are enrolled in school and do not have a criminal record.

Requests denied

Nelson said even though Perez never was charged with a crime, her initial request and subsequent appeal to have his case dismissed have been denied by the chief porsecutor handling the case in San Antonio. Nelson said she has not been given a reason for the denial.

Nelson said she also thinks that Ortiz's case should be dismissed under the guidelines since it was a Class B misdemeanor. Nelson is awaiting a decision in her appeal for Ortiz.

"What's supposed to be happening in San Antonio is that as cases come up for hearing with immigration judges, they're supposed to be screening and dismissing those that are not high priorities, and they're not doing that," Nelson said. "They're sending out form letters saying: 'We've considered it. No.'"

* * *

Magana said it is disapppointing that while the Obama administration has taken a stance to reform and slow down deportations of undocumented student, the changes are not being carried out.

"There are certain cases across the nation where they are doing the opposite of what they are stating publicly," Magana said.

Nelson has three other cases involving local college students who she thinks should not be facing deportation under the guidelines.

ICE also began deportation proceedings for both teens' fathers because they were minors when their cases began.

Perez's father, Jose, can apply for a cancellation of removal because two of his five children were born in the U.S. But Ortiz's father, Raul, faces the same uphill battle as his son to stay in Waco.

"These are the cases that I lose a lot of sleep over," Nelson said, referring to both Perez and Ortiz. "There are a lot of cases that I defend where I think, 'This is going to be bad for their families,' but these two boys in particular, it really hurts my heart."

Mexico connections

Orti said the thought of returning to a country he has no real connection to is frightening. He has lived in the U.S. since he was 4 years old, and he hardly knows any of the distant family members living in his birthplace of Benito Juarez in Mexico's Federal District.

He said his family always has been fearful of rumors that ICE would conduct random roundups to detain undocumented immigrants, but he had tried to stay out of trouble to avoid the threat of deportation.

"It's been difficult, and it's scary," said Ortiz, an only child. "I haven't been in Mexico in more than 15 years. Almost all of my life I've been here. I don't know anything about Mexico."

Ortiz has been looking forward to graduating June 1 and beginning his studies in automotive mechanics at Texas State Technical College this fall. More than anything, he just wants a chance to establish a career working with cars and building a stable future for himself.

"I feel frustrated, because I'd like to have more time (here)," Ortiz said.

Perez said he is anxious about the deportation process, noting that he has never been in trouble befor. Of the fight that led to his arrest, Perez said he and some friends were hanging out, and playful banter and horseplay escalated when one friend complained he had been hit too hard.

Perez, a bystander in the incident, said he was arrested after that student's parents called the police. No charges were filed, bue he remained in jail for six weeks on an immigration hold as ICE began deporation proceedings.

Perez, who came to the U.S. at age 5, also wants to study automotive mechanics and is hoping to attend Navarro College.

He is not very optimistic about what opportunities would be available if he had to return to Guanajuato where he was born. He also has never visited Mexico befor, and he has yet to meet some of his relatives still living there.

"I feel like it's better if I stay here," Perez said. "If I go back over there, I'm going to have more problems.

"(My parents) wanted to do what they could for us to stay here. It's better over here in the United States, for us to go to school and try to get a better education."

04/19/2012

A special Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program announced last August to reduce the massive backlog of pending matters by identifying those that could be dismissed or put on hold has resulted in the closure of 2,609 cases, according to government data covering the period up to the end of March. The backlog reduction is less than one percent of the 298,173 cases pending before the Immigration Courts as of the end of last September.

The stated goal of the ICE program was to better prioritize and reduce the backup of pending matters that had led to lengthy delays in the proceedings of noncitizens it wanted to deport. So far, however, the pace of these closures has not been sufficient to stop the growth in the court's backlog. In fact, as of the end of March 2012, the Immigration Court backlog had risen to 305,556 matters.

These and other results — by court and hearing location — are based upon analyses of very recent case-by-case records obtained from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University. EOIR, a part of the Department of Justice, administers the nation's special administrative court system charged with deciding whether noncitizens can be deported or are legally entitled to remain in this country.

Total Cases Closed Based on Prosecutorial Discretion in the Texas Immigration Courts:

San Antonio - 19

Pearsall Detention Center - 1

Harlingen - 146

El Paso - 62

El Paso Service Processing Center - 2

Dallas - 56

Oklahoma City (satelite of Dallas Immigration Court) - 6

Houston - 1*

Total Texas Cases - 293*

I was surprised that only 1 case from the Houston courts have been closed. The Office of Chief Counsel in Houston began going through cases and offering termination or closures before other offices and so their numbers should be higher.

*Raed Gonzalez, Houston Immigration attorney, confirmed that this number is not correct. He states that, "Last year, a bunch of cases were dismissed. This is inaccurate. "